“Lord, I am not worthythat you should enter under my roof,but only say the word,and my soul shall be healed.”

-Roman Missal

For Roman Catholics, these words should sound very familiar. Except for a few altered words, we have said these words at every Mass for our whole lives. The Church calls for a “full and active participation by all the people [as] the aim to be considered before all else” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 14). Full and active participation means saying the words, doing the actions, praying the prayers, and meaning what we say, do, and pray. No, that’s not always easy, but we are called to constantly make that effort for full and active participation. What’s the point if we are not going to devote every fiber of our being to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? The Eucharist is called the “fount and apex of the whole Christian life” (Lumen Gentium, 11). [The normal language we hear is ‘source and summit,’ but, in the original document, ‘fount and apex’ was used, and I like the sound of that better.] The Eucharist is that from which the Christian life flows and that which it seeks. Does it not deserve our entire selves?

So once again I say: we have heard and said basically these words for most of our lives. How often have we actually stepped back to actually think about what we are saying? We are standing before the Lord, the God of the Universe, celebrating the earthly liturgy that reflects that heavenly liturgy. Maybe it’s just me, but maybe we should mean what we say. God knows the very depths of our souls. He knows when we tell the truth and when we lie. He knows how much we invest of ourselves into what we do. So should we not give a little thought to what we say and do? Even more so, should we not give a little (or a lot) more thought to what we say and do to God? It seems to me that the obvious answer would indeed be ‘YES!’

How much do you give thought to the words we say at Mass, or the words you say in prayer? I don’t intend to make any sort of judgment about you, but think about it: you can be your own judge, for only you (and God) know what you think in your prayer. Sometimes we can seem to lie to ourselves when we make our prayers to God. We convince ourselves that we can lie to God. Like I said above, He knows man’s heart – ‘the innermost or central part of anything.’ There’s nothing about us that God does not know. He created us, for crying out loud! We can lie to ourselves as much as we want, but that won’t have any effect on the Creator of Heaven and Earth. With that in mind, it seems like one should have a desire to reject any tendency to lie to oneself. In the grand scheme of things, we’re doing nothing but harming ourselves and our relationship with the One for which we were created.

That is something that we should indeed desire to keep in mind as we go forward to celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi tomorrow. We celebrate the Body of Christ. That term does indeed refer to several things, including the Church and the Blessed Sacrament. On tomorrow’s Solemnity, the Church seeks to specifically call to mind the importance of the Eucharist in her life and mission. Now, the Mass is indeed important. I repeat, it is IMPORTANT! I still don’t think that adequately states the importance of the Mass. Christians through the centuries have spoken on the centrality and importance of the Mass, coming up with far better words than I ever could:

St. John Chrysostom: “When the Eucharist is being celebrated, the sanctuary is filled with countless angels who adore the divine victim immolated on the altar.”

St. John Vianney: “If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy.”

St. Thomas Aquinas: “The celebration of Holy Mass is as valuable as the death of Jesus on the cross.”

So many more saints have spoken on the greatness of the Mass and the immensity of the implications of this prayer of the Church. With that in mind, shouldn’t it strike us even more necessary to believe every word we speak within the context of the Mass???

The above were all thoughts that everyone should keep in mind. The following is a matter of my own personal preference that I would like to present for consideration.

When I say the words ‘Lord I am not worthy,’ I can’t help but take those to heart. We are about to receive the God of the Universe into our bodies. An intimate connection that is merely a foretaste of the heavenly communion we look forward to experiencing. We are sinful human beings. We could not deserve Christ’s gift of His Body, but He desires to give it to us anyway. Christ’s gracious gift calls for a humble reaction. What are my hands that they should be able to place the Eucharist upon my tongue? The priest is said to be In persona Christi. By allowing the priest himself to place the host on our tongue, we are allowing Christ to feed us Himself with Himself. I don’t want to claim to have the ability to grant myself that Gift. Why do we kneel in prayer? It’s a sign of humility, a sign of our smallness, a sign of our recognition of the One greater than us. That is why I kneel to receive the Eucharist on my tongue. I don’t have any desire to be noticed or to give off the holier-than-thou impression. (I actually hate when I get attention, especially for receiving communion.) I desire to be as humble in my reception of Christ’s Body as I know how. It was the tradition for centuries to receive on the tongue whilst kneeling. I don’t expect everyone to revert back to that, but I do desire for everyone to consciously think about that which they are receiving in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

‘O Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine.’

On this Solemnity of Corpus Christi, I encourage you to step back and reflect on how you approach the Blessed Sacrament. The Lord humbled Himself to die on a Cross and grant the Church His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity to receive. I call you on to think about your reception of that Gift. Maybe you think you should receive on the knees. Maybe you think you should begin receiving on the tongue. Or maybe you think you should just be more conscious about how you receive the Lord into your body. Whatever it is, I encourage you to seek to receive the Eucharist more humbly, more thankfully, and more consciously.

““Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated,I put before you the one great thing to love on earth:
the Blessed Sacrament. . . .
There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity,
and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death.”